adefinitemaybe

Karma: −254

adefinitemaybe 3 Jan 2010 2:27 UTC
−10 points
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread

If you’re being a troll: save yourself some trouble and go away. Eliezer’s been irritable lately and is apt to boot you.

If I were a troll, would going away somehow be more beneficial to me than being booted? I mean, does this Eliezer actually physically kick suspected trolls? Or would the end result be the exact same? And if I were a troll, do you suppose saving myself some trouble would be my overriding concern?

If you’re actually, sincerely trying to have a fun exchange about whether you might be immortal (quantum or otherwise):

1) The little numbers on your comments are, in fact, important and should interest you. They indicate how you’re being received, on average.

Why should I care how I’m being received by anonymous faceless strangers, whose posts I may never even have read, and who may not even be taking part in the discussion? Are there Wrongie awards up for grabs? I believe the girl mentioned something about a… check? Please don’t tell me that I should alter my thinking and the expression of my ideas to suit popular opinion! Is that what you do?

You may have corrupted public opinion of this account to the point where you can’t salvage it...

So, public opinion is going to hold something I wrote on this thread against me forever, and use it against me on other threads, whether it agrees with me on those other threads or not? Have I stumbled into the Old Fishwives’ forum by mistake?

If this is the venue you’ve chosen to have your discussion on, surely you think we make suitable interlocutors—and hopefully, that will let you find informational value in numeric disapproval too.

I began posting here about a minute after I arrived for the first time. I’m just beginning to learn about the mindsets of some of the participants here. I’m not overly impressed so far. I’m prepared though, to give it a chance. No point in going by first impressions. I’ll need a few more listenings before I decide if I like it or not.

When people quibble with you over what words mean, that requires your attention too! They’re trying to find a way to communicate with you.

I received a response that said (in its entirety) “Taboo legitimate”. The word ‘Taboo’ was a link to an article about something or other that appeared irrelevant. Do you suppose that poster was trying to find a way to communicate? When I questioned him, he apologized for his brevity and expanded on his post, and I withdrew the word ’legitimate”, as it was redundant anyway. Others chimed in (as you do here) telling me how I was the one at fault.

Pretty much nobody here will find themselves strangely compelled by protestations that a) your opponents have poor reading comprehension

Yet, Jack, for one, appears to have poor reading comprehension.

b) it is unfair to expect you to do any background reading even when links are supplied

I don’t protest that it’s unfair. I state that I’m not prepared to do it. If you don’t like it, either stop providing such reading material in lieu of originally-phrased arguments, or don’t engage me. Nobody is forcing you to respond to me.

c) you are winning

I didn’t make this a competition, however, I am winning the debate. It’s immaterial that people don’t find themselves compelled by my stating such (in face of the many votes that state otherwise, and yet fly in the face of the rather obvious missing evidence of my mortality). Is humility big here?

d) we are engaged in groupthink

So, you’re saying that the group, as a body, denies it is engaged in Groupthink? Is there any room for discussion on that?

e) you are an unheard-of non-quantumly immortal creature (although I’d be pretty impressed by certain sorts of video evidence!).

I didn’t say that. I said I could be that. Part of your job is to present me with evidence that I’m not. America was unheard-of… until it was heard-of. And it was right there. The people just couldn’t hear of it, at the beginning.

Right, enough fun. Let’s stick to the topic at hand from now on.

adefinitemaybe 3 Jan 2010 1:49 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread

Oh no. I’ve been quite convinced by this thread. It is clearly impossible to present you with anything you’ll recognize as evidence of your mortality.

Yes, it is clearly impossible. As I predicted. Although you could have at least tried. Does this mean I DO win? Or is this some bizarro debateland, where you still win?

I’m serious about the bet though. Or does your belief that there is no evidence that you are mortal not change the your belief that you are indeed mortal?

I’m not interested in your bet. I might die. There is an equal weight of evidence (i.e., zero) for my immortality. You want to bet $5 against my entire estate on a coin toss. No thanks. Perhaps that why I didn’t predict that’s I wouldn’t die in 2010.… or ever.

adefinitemaybe 3 Jan 2010 1:39 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Technologos’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
No, I have no evidence for your mortality. Although it’s possible that I could someday have such evidence (based on the generally-accepted definition of mortality), I could never be in a position to present YOU with any.

My underlying interest in this theme lies in the direction of why we blindly accept our own mortality on such little individually-beheld evidence. Is it possible that, as with increasing average human lifespan, dying has more to do with belief about dying than with any physiological limitations? Accidents and murder, etc., apart, could we believe ourselves to 200 years old, if we could shake off the ingrained belief in the inevitability of death? Could avoidance of news reports involving death help? Are we really to believe that gains in average human lifespan are solely due to improvements in factors external to the body? If so, why is that many remote, relatively under-developed areas produce so many centenarians? Does belief that it’s easily achievable to live to, say, 90 years have nothing to do with individually achieving such longevity? And does “genetics” have more to do with monkey see, monkey do than we imagine?

Note: In 1900, global average lifespan was 31 years. By mid century, it was 48 years. In 2005, it was 65.6 years. http://www.who.int/global_health_histories/seminars/presentation07.pdf

adefinitemaybe 3 Jan 2010 1:10 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: orthonormal’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread

I have changed my opinion of you, and I think that Less Wrong is not suitable for you.

Thank you. I don’t care what you think about my suitability here, and I suspect your motives for so advising me to be based in unjustified ill-will. Please restrict your subsequent responses to me to the topic in hand.

If you look back over your exchange, several of us have replied in good faith to clarify your assertion and expand upon the areas of disagreement. You have not shown the least interest in returning the favor.

I made a prediction. If you wish to challenge that prediction, the onus is upon you to present me with evidence of my mortality. I will either accept that evidence or reject it. Readers may judge the rationality of each side, based upon our exchanges. Nothing else is relevant. Unless you require me to explain the prediction to you.

Your presence here is wasting everyone’s time, including yours

I feel my time here has been far from wasted. If you feel that commenting on my prediction or responding to my posts represents a waste of your time, perhaps you should consider just doing something else. Responding to a different post, for example. If you are being forced to respond to my posts, by someone who may be inside your house watching you, please indicate by blinking one eye.

you might be much happier, I think, engaging in this behavior on another forum where it is more the norm.

What behavior? Making a prediction, then defending it? No, I think the New Year’s Prediction thread on this site is as good a place as any. In fact, it’s ideal.

Although you may not believe yourself to be a troll, you will almost certainly be regarded as one here.

I’m sorry, I don’t speak weasel. Did you say “Although you are apparently not a troll, I’m going to do my best to convince others that you are, and, perhaps, eventually have you banned. Basically because I feel somewhat threatened by your manner of thinking.”? If I’m a troll, who, until provoked (as here), sticks to arguing his side of a relevant debate in good faith, what does that make you and others, having made specific posts telling me how I’m not suitable and would be happier elsewhere?

Again, I’m not interested in what you think about me, or in receiving any advice you might have for me. If you don’t want to engage me, don’t. If nobody engages me, I’ll leave. Obviously.

Apart from that, I’m ready and willing to respond in good faith to anyone who makes an originally-phrased argument here against my prediction. I’m not interested in being directed to read the ideas of third parties. I can find my own way to the library.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 23:58 UTC
−8 points
in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
I shall assume that you are human (which I think is virtually certain) and speaking in good faith (which I shall simply assume for the sake of the conversation).<
1. Why wouldn’t you just take it as read that I’m speaking in good faith? You’ve used a lot of words in attempting to paint me as a country bumpkin, not fit to tie your intellectual sandals. That you preface all that with a comment about having to overtly assume my good faith makes me think you’re not that sure about the bumpkin thing.
2. You can’t just assume I’m human. If that were valid, we could all just assume whatever we wanted here, and claim we had won our arguments.
You say “I don’t know if I am human, in the generally accepted sense”, but I do not believe you.<

Apart from your beliefs being entirely irrelevant, how is it possible for you to form an opinion about what I claim not to know, that is not entirely founded on your emotion? Since the greatest philosophers have struggled over the ages with the question “Am I?”, I don’t see how “Am I human?” will likely ever have a cut and dried answer.

These being so, evidence that you will die and not live again, and that you did not exist before you were conceived, lies in such observations as these:
1. The tendency of every human body to stop working within a century and then disintegrate. Not merely the observation that people die, which is as old as there have been people, but the extensive knowledge of how and why they die.<
How many human bodies have you personally witnessed stop working and begin disintegrating, within 100 years? I don’t grant that that is a tendency at all. We only have information about those who have died. If we are to examine the chances of my immortality, we must look for those who haven’t died. Do you have any relevant input with respect to people who haven’t died? If not, does the fact that you, personally, don’t, constitute evidence of anything? If not, does the same apply to all other individuals? If so, may we say that there is no reliable evidence that humans all die?
1. The absence of any reliable evidence of survival of the mind in any form thereafter.<
Do you have any reliable evidence for the existence of the mind at ANY time? If so, can you present it to me. That you purportedly think will not convince me. Isn’t it true that the existence of mind can only ever be hearsay (and, no, I’m not singling you out here)?
1. The absence of any reliable evidence of existence of that mind before conception.<
Oh! please. What an entirely stupid thing to write. It’s fundamental that evidence can’t be produced for the non-existence of a thing. What are you going to say “It isn’t there, none of us present can experience it, so it can’t exist”?
1. The absence of any reliable evidence of a mind existing independently of the physical body; the existence of much reliable evidence to the effect that the mind is a physical process of the brain.<
Again, you have no reliable evidence for the existence of mind (in the form it is widely thought to exist, i.e., one each, inside our bodies somewhere, etc.). For all you know, you’re plugged into the Matrix.

Of course, many have argued otherwise. Not merely books, but whole libraries could be collected arguing for the existence of souls independent of the body and their immortality.<

Wow, is that what got your backs up? The idea that I might be trying to prove the existence of God? Is that what all the witch-hunting is about? My other prediction is future formation of an Atheist Inquisition, as Atheism gradually takes the classic form of a religion.

But even if the matter were seriously contendable, that would not alter the existence of the evidence I have given, merely put up other evidence against it.<

I resent your framing the debate (which you, contradictorily, have felt the need to participate in at length) as not seriously contendable. You’ve given no such evidence. Everything you’ve said relies on the definite prior existence of things as yet not proven to exist, and the definite non-existence of certain other things. Your arguments then, are entirely untenable.

So there is the evidence that you asked for. I am of course only summarising things here. But what else is possible? If someone who knows no mathematics at all starts babbling to me about the 4-colour theorem, what can I do but advise them to study mathematics for a few years?<

“If someone who knows no mathematics at all starts babbling to me about the 4-colour theorem...” Do you ever even think a little bit before you type something? Or do you just copy and paste from your Bumper Book of Insults for Use by the Pompous?

That being said, however, you might indeed be immortal!<

That’s not being argued. The challenge is for you to present me with evidence of my mortality. So far, you’ve listed a lot of irrelevancies about what you personally believe about “human beings”. All your evidence stands or falls on a) human beings all having died in the past (which, of course we KNOW they haven’t, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation), b) all human beings being conventional, and c) my being a conventional human being too. For it to carry any weight at all (and I suspect it wouldn’t ever), you’d first have to prove that there is only one kind of human being, that those human beings all die (and have all died, say, within 200 years of being born), and that I am a human being (and not just in one physical shape and form either, but entirely).

Had you been born two centuries ago, you would certainly be dead today, drowned in the river of time.<

Certainly? Does that word have a special meaning here I don’t know about? Can you list any other certainties? If you can make the list long enough, we can dispense with any further musing here. For my part, I know of nothing that is certain. Of course, I’m only a humble child amongst knowledgeable adults here.

The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to stay alive long enough to benefit from medical advances that will enable you to swim upstream, and perhaps even overtake the current. That is the only route to immortality there is...<

Are you the Omnipotent One they said we should seek out? You could be in the running for Atheist Pope one day.
```
"I'm taking the time to construct original arguments here."
```
You are not. You began with a bare demand for evidence of your mortality. (Why? Why that question, and why here?) When you didn’t like the answers, you demanded more loudly, then threw a tantrum.<

I didn’t. I began by making a prediction on a prediction thread. I didn’t ask for responses. I was then challenged on that prediction and have since defended it. Can we say in light of that, that your “Why that question, and why here?” question is silly (or is it something someone in a synod of atheists is bound to ask)? When I didn’t “like” the answers, I showed how they were inadequate. My responses never got “louder”. That you think they did, probably has more to do with faulty wiring in your brain, and perhaps your own tendency to try to shout people down. Have your speakers checked. And I didn’t throw a tantrum. I merely questioned the rationale of corrupting the voting system by using it to put down supposed “heresy”. To censor. To maintain group integrity. To encourage Groupthink.
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"Mommy, the geeks won't let me sit at their table!"
```
You intended that ironically, but it exactly describes your situation: a child who has wandered into a conversation among adults and understands nothing.<

I understand that you are a pompous windbag who can’t form a coherent thought, due to his brain being fogged by a fantastic hubris. Was that “3. The absence of any reliable evidence of existence of that mind before conception.” part of the adult conversation? What about “”If someone who knows no mathematics at all starts babbling to me about the 4-colour theorem...”? I may be a child, but those statements seem stupid to me.

My statement re “the geeks table” had more to do with the sad reality that complete censorship and ideas control is more assured here than at any Medieval synod.

You do not even understand that there is something for you to understand.<

Oh well, that settles it. You win. You now move on to the quarter-final round against the guy who thinks he’s Napoleon at Bedlam Hospital. It should be a cracker!

But the remedy is easy: read every post linked to here. It’s about the size of a book. Post nothing until you have finished. If you understand what you read there—not agree with, but understand—then there will be enough of a common background to have a useful conversation.<

Groupthink gone wild. “Will you confess your heresy, and bow down and kiss the ringI If you do, all this torture will stop.” I don’t have to read and regurgitate other people’s ideas. My brain makes its own ideas. Ideas, apparently, that encourage you to respond in long diatribes. Do you mean you’d write MORE if I first read the articles before posting again? Please feel free not to respond at all.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 11:50 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: Bindbreaker’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
I’ve been signed up here for about three hours—in total length of membership, not accumulated posting time. There has never been a time when any of my posts had a higher vote score than zero. It’s possible that that is the result of a net negative vote on each, but I’m inclined to think that I haven’t received one positive vote from anyone. Perhaps you were confusing me with someone else.

If I’m asked to leave by an authority, I will leave immediately without complaint. However, I can’t envision having any kind of enjoyable posting future here anyway. I don’t think people here are interested in exploring new territory, as much as belonging to a pretend thinkers club.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 11:35 UTC
−11 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
What’s up Jack, can’t you comprehend what you read? You have to present the evidence of my mortality to ME. It is irrelevant whether or not I ever die.

And you’re the one who is trying to tell me that Unknowns’ linked article means anything?

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 11:25 UTC
−13 points
in reply to: Jack’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
If we are all to just read the articles, what’s the point of having a discussion forum? If Unknowns wants to use the content of that article to make his argument, then he should do so, and make the argument in his own words. It is sheer laziness (and verging on the plagiaristic) to just point to articles and say “My argument is in there somewhere. Please respond as soon as you identify it. Of course, I’ll get all bent out of shape if you misinterpret what I meant to say, although I’m prepared to accept some associated praise for having ALSO thought that which the article’s author has taken the time to write down and publish.”

“If you can’t be bothered to read it then everyone is going to assume that you aren’t arguing in good faith.”

I’m taking the time to construct original arguments here. I’m also taking the time to read all original responses that people offer, and respond to those. I’m receiving some responses to those arguments in the form of links to articles penned by third parties. And you have the audacity to threaten me that people will assume my motives are unwholesome if I refuse to accept that sort of lazy response as legitimate (in the non-geek sense of the word), and to inform me that they would be right to do so? Suppose, in lieu of this response to you, I just directed you to The Collected Works of Friedrich Nietzsche? Would you read them and get back to me with your rebuttal? If the article is as short as you say, shouldn’t Unknowns have the common courtesy to paraphrase it here?

I made a prediction. So far it has come true. Nobody has yet presented me with any evidence of my mortality. If that pains any of you to the point of abusing the privilege of this site’s forward-thinking voting system, please, take a moment to give yourself a good slap.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 10:35 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: Bindbreaker’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
I made a prediction. People challenged me on that...weakly. I responded to them, rationally and in good faith. People are voting me down because I issued a challenge they can’t meet; because I hit them with a conundrum that they can’t solve. I’ve dented pride. And, because I’m new, the humiliation they irrationally feel is doubled. How can I be trolling when all I’ve done is respond, amicably and on-topic, to posters’ comments? Isn’t it true that all the hostility is coming from their side?

“New Year’s prediction: adefinitemaybe will be banned from Less Wrong. Sixty-five percent.”

Why, what rule have I broken? Is there a rule about riding roughshod over wannabe thinkers intellectual shortcomings?

Mommy, the geeks won’t let me sit at their table! And, because I lack the “karma” that only the geeks can issue, I can’t do anything about it.

New Year Prediction: The Less Wrong community becomes so insular and inbred that its members discover that more and more of their thoughts begin to be spawned retarded. Have you people had a look at yourselves recently?

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 10:19 UTC
−8 points
in reply to: Unknowns’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
Do you have any evidence of my mortality to present to me or don’t you? Please, don’t respond with any more links to other site pages in lieu of original, rational thought and coherent argument.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 10:09 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
No, you accused me of being a troll. Are you now stating you believe me to be a troll posting in good faith?

“If you continue to speak nonsense and fail to comprehend those who are engaged with you you’ll just be voted down to oblivion.”

What a perfectly rational argument. I’m speaking nonsense, therefore, you are right and I’m wrong, and I must change. Brilliant… if a trifle lazy. Okay, tell me what to say so that I get voted most popular boy. What’s considered acceptable rational thought around here?

I must say that I loved your ‘Just go easy on the ”...groupthink!” stuff, that tends to be a tipping point .’

And that from a “rational thinker”!

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 9:24 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: radical_negative_one’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
I’ve already retracted the word “legitimate” as being redundant (although I don’t see how you can have any fruitful discussion if you’re going to ask for the meanings of everyday words like “legitimate”. Don’t you find such a practice bogs things down?)

Now, can someone please offer a friendly explanation as to why ALL of my comments have attracted negative votes, even though people are still engaging me, and still failing to provide any evidence as to my mortality?

Even my original post, which simply outlines my 2010 prediction, has garnered 4 negative votes. Wasn’t I supposed to make a New Year’s prediction on this New Year’s Predictions thread? Why would a 2010 prediction get any negative votes, or any votes at all, until either it came true or 1/1/11?

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 9:12 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
“Votes would have hovered around 0 if you had let it go when it turned out your joke didn’t quite work. Meanwhile, I had best not reply further lest I be found to violate the “don’t feed the trolls” injunction.”

Wow, that’s pretty harsh. Can you provide any evidence to back up that accusation as to my intent? How do I know you’re not just a sore loser?

Meanwhile, I’m posting in good faith, and I think I’m holding my ground pretty well. The “there’s no real evidence that humans always die” thing that occurred to me (see Zack’s comments on this thread segment) strikes me as very discussable.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 8:50 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: Zack_M_Davis’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
Perhaps I should have dispensed with the word “legitimate”. In retrospect it was redundant. If evidence is not legitimate, it is not evidence.

Again, I don’t know if I am human, in the generally accepted sense. I don’t know that I’m going to die. Even if I am a normal human being, however, I can’t accept that what has purportedly happened to any other human being must happen to me. Especially, given the fact that I don’t know what actually happened to the vast majority of people that were ever born. Far more people have “disappeared” out of my life (after having briefly entered it) than have apparently died (to my satisfaction, evidence-wise). So, for me, individually, the evidence would suggest that most people disappear (go on living elsewhere in the world—out of my ken), rather than die.

Where did anyone get the idea that the preponderance of evidence shows, to the satisfaction of any individual, that most human beings die? Isn’t that just hearsay, based on very small evidence samples?

Is it possible that only human beings who maintain close relationships with other human beings die? Could it be that many loners are immortal? Is there any global agency that is matching deaths to births, and investigating all anomalies?

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 8:31 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: Unknowns’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
No, you haven’t done that.

I may have memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant. If I told you about it, and you accepted my evidence, and presented it back to me as evidence, it could only represent evidence of my immortality. I require evidence, from you, of my mortality.

I may have no memory of always existing. However, that would be irrelevant also, given that human beings, apparently, (and, for all anybody knows, immortals) have no knowledge of the rules governing immortality. Perhaps immortals don’t have such memory. Plenty of human beings suffering amnesia have no memory of having lived in previous periods. That doesn’t constitute evidence that they didn’t live in those periods.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 8:13 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: radical_negative_one’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
Am I a human being (if it’s not a personal question)? I don’t know. What am I, omnipotent? Perhaps I took human form. Anyway, even if I know something you don’t, the prediction is that I will never be presented with evidence of my mortality… obviously, by any of you 6.8 billion mayflies.

Again, whether I’m actually immortal or not is irrelevant.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 7:58 UTC
−9 points
in reply to: Unknowns’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
If you show me that there’s a 90% chance of that happening, I’ll make you an archbishop. I say there’s no chance of that happening. So that, I’m afraid, leaves you awkwardly situated amongst the highly smiteable.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 7:47 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: adefinitemaybe’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
Anyway, not to worry. We can still be sure of taxes.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 7:37 UTC
−11 points
in reply to: Unknowns’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
I don’t claim to be either mortal or immortal. I predict that no evidence of my mortality will be presented to me in 2010… or ever. My definition of legitimate evidence is evidence which would leave me without a reasonable doubt that I’m going to die… and stay dead.… forever. In the absence of any such evidence being presented to me, I have no recourse but to consider myself to be immortal. You may too. I’m particularly fond of coconuts and virgins.

Really though, do you guys ever just say die, from the get go, and move on to the next, actually debatable, thing? It’s like I threw ball or som.… {Woof!} As I was saying, it’s like I threw a B-A-L-L or something.

adefinitemaybe 2 Jan 2010 7:26 UTC
−10 points
in reply to: Unknowns’s comment on: New Year’s Predictions Thread
If I am immortal I am ageless. I may look a certain way, but that is irrelevant. Even if I was born, in the normal human way, I’d still be ageless, and I’d still be immortal. That I took human form for a few years is irrelevant. Unless you can show that no immortals were ever born, in the normal human way, and appeared to age, and even appeared to die (immortals can’t really die), your ‘evidence’ does not constitute evidence.

“100%” can’t denote odds. And, being an immortal, I’m not a betting man.